Identifying High-ROI Business Ventures in 2026

, hospitality industry leaders are looking towards 2026 with cautious optimism. Rising operational costs are slated to challenge owners this year and lower-tier segments might have a hard time amidst a growing wealth bifurcation.

And through everything, hotel business are expected to fortify their portfolios with new brand name offerings and collaborations. As the year gets underway, Hotel Dive spoke with hospitality leaders from differing corners of the market about their 2026 forecasts. Below are the top trends expected to impact hotel operations, performance, net system development and more this year.

Overall salaries, incomes and advantages paid by U.S. hotels rose to $127 billion in 2025, according to information from the American Hotel & Lodging Association, shared with Hotel Dive. In 2026, that figure is predicted to reach $131 billion, representing a roughly 3% year-over-year increase, per AHLA. For hotel owners, increasing labor expenses posture a challenge to net operating earnings growth, Kevin Davis, Americas CEO at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, told Hotel Dive.

Targeting High-ROI Business Ventures in 2026

"It is an absolute concern." Rising labor expenses have been a difficulty for hoteliers for several years, Davis stated, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, hotel labor expenses have increased 15.3% from 2019 to 2025, outpacing the 12.8% growth in overall operating earnings, according to AHLA. Over the last few years, thousands of union hotel employees have actually gone on strike demanding higher wages in order to keep up with the increasing expense of living in locations such as California, Hawaii and Las Vegas.

3, 2024 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan by means of Getty Images In 2026, Davis kept in mind, union settlements will be "front and center" in New York City, where the New York Hotel and Video gaming Trades Council's union contract with the Hotel Association of New York City is set to expire in July.

"Need has not stayed up to date with this rate," she stated. "We're also seeing these difficulties compounded by legislation that targets hotel operations, such as extreme labor and licensing policies like the New York City Safe Hotels Act. When demand is falling and costs are soaring, the mathematics just does not accumulate." Salaries, wages and payroll-related expenditures paid by hotels now account for more than 32% of total revenue, according to AHLA.

Top Profitable Franchise Prospects for 2026

As more hotel guests turn to expert system to improve their travel experience, reserving hotels straight through large language models (LLMs) might be next, hospitality specialists stated. Agentic commerce a process by which self-governing AI agents act upon behalf of a consumer to find, compare and complete purchases is a trend that has sped up throughout markets like retail.

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According to PwC's 2025 Holiday Outlook report, 76% of millennials said they're most likely to use AI for travel recommendations. A smaller percentage (57%) stated they 'd be likely to utilize it for booking travel. That number is growing, Jonathan Kletzel, PwC's travel, transportation and logistics leader, informed Hotel Dive. "The number of customers that are searching [via LLMs] for product or services in travel has swollen in the last 12 months and is speeding up every day," Kletzel stated, including that inevitably, hotels will "take a tough look at how they can make it possible for commerce and transactions through agentic [AI]"" [Brands] can construct on the trust they currently have if they do a fantastic job with how they handle AI in 2026." Michael Klein Head of retail, travel and hospitality item marketing at Talkdesk To stay competitive with direct reservation, larger multibrand hotel business will "embed LLMs into their own brand websites and mobile apps, and change the way the customer searches," Kletzel stated.

"If you are not discoverable in an LLM search engine result which numerous brand names aren't, and this is the big panic that they're all going through today customers aren't going to consider you," he stated. Michael Klein, head of retail, travel and hospitality item marketing at AI client experience platform Talkdesk, likewise told Hotel Dive that hospitality players need to ensure their property info is being indexed by LLMs to appear in tourist queries.